“We have had some very interesting little lights at the end of the tunnel in individual studies,” Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on the sidelines of a Paris conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
“It is a difficult road, but a feasible road,” he said.
Proof of vaccine feasibility lay with a Thai study dubbed RV144, which in 2009 demonstrated protection for 31 percent of some 16,000 people given an experimental vaccine, said Fauci.
“I think we will likely have a (vaccine that works at) better than 31 percent, but there’s certainly the possibility that we won’t have a 90 percent,” Fauci told reporters.
“And I think there is even a greater possibility that we won’t have a pristine cure that would essentially cure everybody who is HIV infected.
“I think it’s not only possible that that won’t happen — I think it is likely that that won’t happen.”